ROCK HILL, South Carolina, April 16, 2015 – 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced today that a 20-month-old toddler is breathing and swallowing easier thanks to a team of cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, who used a full-color 3D printed replica of his heart to prepare for a delicate, 2.5 hour procedure at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

3DS has been at the forefront of surgical planning and personalized medical solutions for almost two decades. With an end-to-end digital thread that integrates surgical simulation, training, planning, and printing of anatomical models, surgical instruments and medical devices, 3DS has helped doctors in tens of thousands of complex medical cases to achieve better patient outcomes with faster surgeries.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

When most people hear the phrases “additive manufacturing” or “3D printing”, they usually picture the technology being put to use in large factories, creating prototypes, or in someone’s garage who’s making little plastic trinkets. However, as of late, 3D printing has been gaining ground within the medical field, as doctors and surgeons are really beginning to understand the potential that it has in creating prostheses.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

Dr. Nicola Bizzotto, a young hand surgeon from Verona’s University Orthopedic Clinic, has been among the first in Italy to fully understand the possibilities that 3D printing technologies can offer in the medical field, especially their low-cost applications. To further explore the use of 3D printing within the Italian hospital system, he has worked with a team that includes Verona Clinic director Bruno Magnan and Dr. Pier Maria Fornasari, from a leading Italian orthopedic foundation, the Bologna Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute.
(…weiter auf 3dprintingindustry.com)

One hears the terms 3D printing and scaffolding thrown together often in the long list of ‘what new technology can do for us lately.’ But what is it really, and what are its implications?

Scaffolding itself is a vehicle used to regenerate, or re-grow, biological materials such as bone and tissue. The uses of artificial scaffolding in the engineering of tissue are being heavily researched and used in some cases, but with 3D printing, scientists are racing to the finish line—and beginning a new journey altogether for many disciplines, to include medicine, science, technology, and engineering.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

When it comes to the list of examples of how additive manufacturing is revolutionizing the medical industry, it seems like every week we’re presented with an entirely-new breakthrough. Between new 3D printing technologies that are making it easier and faster for medical professionals to receive models to new ways of 3D scanning a body part and using that model to study pre-surgery, it’s difficult to find any reason how 3D printing isn’t helping change the medical industry. Recently, a patient adopted these methods used by medical professionals and took matters into his own hands when he was diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening condition.
(…weiter auf 3ders.org)

Some of us have had the experience ourselves, regretfully, of enduring a trauma resulting in a broken limb which never completely healed. More often, we know others who have been through falls, motorcycle accidents, car wrecks, etc., and while they seemed to get through the healing process, many years later they still have an exaggerated or maybe slight limp—and may even be somewhat or completely debilitated. While it’s heartbreaking enough to see an adult have permanent damage due to bone trauma, it’s doubly so to see such a thing in a child before they have even begun to live fully.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

3D printing has been used more and more often in medical practice. Doctors and surgeons are beginning to really realize the benefits associated with the use of this technology. For one man, named Mr. Liu, 3D printing aided in helping him turn what could have been a disastrous outlook on life into a phenomenal, heart-felt story.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

3D printing is beginning to really prove itself as an operating room tool in hospitals around the globe. So far it has only caught on in a small percentage of hospitals mostly within a few select countries, with the United States and China seemingly leading the way. Without a doubt though, within a a few years time, 3D printers will be commonplace within hospitals everywhere.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)

3D printing technology allows for greater peace of mind for both the surgeon and patient these days, allowing for better navigation of complex health issues as well as practice beforehand. The days of surgeons having to practice on a variety of substitutes that, besides cadavers, aren’t a very good or true representation of human organs or flesh may be in the past forever.
(…weiter auf 3dprint.com)